Saturday, May 30, 2009

Easily the cheapest wine I will drink, Valpolicella is a light, fragrant red table wine produced in a hilly region by the same name in the province of Verona in Italy. It is typically a blend of three grape varieties: Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara, and ranks just behind Chianti in total DOC production.

This 2008 Collineri is an everyday food wine, completely unoaked, that pairs easily with a wide variety of light dishes. It shows a pale ruby in the glass, with decent clarify. Ripe berries on the nose, enough acidity to balance out the cherry fruit in the mouth, with some stony notes. This wine is very low in tannin, making it friendly and approachable, and is obviously meant to be drunk young. Due to a bit of secondary fermentation in the bottle, this wine even shows a mild effervescence that I thought made it more interesting. And the price? A trifling $3.99 for something I did not spit out. Not bad!